Mark Rand

First off, since it's December 25, I'd like to wish everyone Happy Holidays. Onto the tower. Instead of an Amazon warrior in full battle dress, with spears and a boar, we have a female D&D paladin in armor. The switch is by the toe of her right boot. The tower stairs don't grant entry to the Netherworld and the tower isn't haunted. Instead, the stairs allow entry to a lighthouse on a steep-sided, windsewpt rock the size of a city block. Surrounding the island, as far as the eye can see, is water and a few jagged rocks that are sometimes occupied by mermaids. The two second floor gates don't open onto the graveyards and the Dream Zone. Instead, they open onto city blocks. One block is occupied by a medical clinic, the other by a rec center, complete with an indoor pool, locker rooms, a gymnasium, a multi-purpose room and a weight training room. There are no statues in the hall under the dome and The Hallway of One Hundred Horrors has been replaced by the more pleasent Hallway of Infinity that only the lady mage herself can open. We visit the third floor and the otherworld next.

Mayday. thank you for your comments. They're a great help to me. Would the Initative, in a superhero universe, tell other federal and international law enforcement and intelligence agencies about Hellmouths, Slayers, Vampires, Demons and such?

Good ideas from Mayday and Caped Crusader. Thank you. I've decided to make the mansion a benign (sp) version of The House that Jack Built. Thanks to Lightray for mentioning it. The spells that changed the house keep whatever comes through the doorways inside the mansion. The living room and parlor are haunted by a beautiful female ghost wearing an evening gown and long gloves. She's kind, easy to talk to and a good chess player. The ghosts in the ballroom are still there, but they dance every Sunday, instead of each full moon. Anyone who comes in while the ghosts are dancing will find themselves approched by a ghost of the opposite sex who will ask them to join the dance. If they agree, the ghost will feel solid and be a good dancer. The gate in the sitting room leads to the team's underground base, which is based on the Wayne Foundation Batcave. The tower steps will lead to five portals. Some of Mayday's suggestions will be used for them, if I can find floor plans. I also have to find the statue to hide the switch to the door in. The other floors will be revealed later.

I like the idea of having an armored hero somehow discover the suit. This lets new abilities of the suit be discovered over time and gives a good reason for a tech to stay around a superteam's headquarters.

The lady mage has a familiar, a screech owl named Amber that has adapted to her bondmate's sleep paterns. Two families of black cats also call the mansion home and many birds and small animals show up in the back yard. Of course, the various feeders in the yard may have something to do with this, too. Time passes at the same rate inside and outside the house. A mage's house is, by tradition, larger inside than outside. Since it didn't start out as a mage's house, we have to add rooms where we can. There are two such rooms on the second floor, each larger than the house. One is an English hedge maze. The other is a Japanese garden complex around a large lake that might contain something beside fish. The otherworld, so far, has a hotel, a church, a medical clinic, a rec center with a pool and a school bus from USC positioned around the Washington Monument. More stuff will be added as I decide what it will be. Any suggestions?

How would you do it, Nightfly?

Keep in mind, I'm not saying it's going to be this way. Slayer Centeral (or Watcher HQ) could easily be at Angel's hotel or an estate in England. However, in a universe with superheroes, I suspect that the top brass of the DOD would tell the PRIMUS, the DOSPA and, maybe, UNTIL bigshots about their Initiative group, Slayers, Vampires, Demons, Hellmouths and other such things. Somebody in Washington probably would decide that these people either get federal help or supervision, whether they want it or not Of course, Riley and Samantha Finn would, if asked, tell the feds that it wasn't necessary, but the bigshots probably wouldn't listen until it was too late.

Fanfiction, Nightfly. You can find the main site at http://www.fanfiction.net.

I like the concept. I may even use her instead of the armored hero I had planned. Any chance of having an illo posted?

Thanks, Lightray. As I recall, The Powers That Be, also known as The Higher Powers and The Elders, are often mentioned in stories and TV programs with a metaphysical bent. I chose to have most of the buildings in the otherworldly other world come from the late 1960s and early 1970s because, in those days, nurses and waitresses in casual-dining restaraunts actually wore uniforms, not what they wear today, and gloves were an intregal part of an airline stewardess's uniform. Since the clothing was removed from the bodies before they were cremated and then cleaned, the heroes and staff have access to them and may even claim what they want. The team's nurse, who started out wearing scrubs, decided to try on a nurse's uniform that was her size and, finding that she liked the look, claimed the uniforms that were her size, three identical white caps, and a red-lined, navy-blue cape. Now, she wears them instead of her scrubs. Beth, the PRIMUS liaison, and Christine, the techie/ninja, have laid claim to stewardess uniforms from that era as well as other clothes.

One of my main sources of inspiration for involving the Buffyverse and the olice is the Slayer / CSI series. Please note, there are a few spoilers here. At the end of the third story, Buffy joins CSI as a consultant. They pay her a retainer and, when necessary, a salary and expenses. The fourth story concludes with, as an epilogue, the Sunnydale earthquake. After that, the new Watchers Council is based in Las Vegas in a former Enron compound. Of course, there's a price to pay. The Slayers must help law enforcement and follow due process. In return, they learn state-of-the-art police and forensics techniques. Such things help in cities where they're not working closely with the police. (To me, this sounds like they're a sanctioned superhero team.) A later story gives us some figures. There are in excess of 100 that they've found, the youngest being a nine year old child. (According to a previous story, said nine year old child is still in training and her parents have to give permission before she can start patrolling.)

I just finished the book, The Magician's Nephew, that Lightray suggested. He's right. It's good. For those of you who don't know it, it's the first book of C. S. Lewis's The Chronicles of Narnia series. I assume the world you're talking about is Charn and the White Witch is Queen Jadis. My dead world is actually a pocket reality created by the Powers That Be to hold buildings and objects from versions of Earth where people died out. Of course, before they let the heroes have access to it, they made sure all harmful agents were destroyed.

As far as the support staff goes, the less people the better. It consists of two women, an engineer and a nurse. DOSPA's is based in the Federal Building and works more with Dr. Arcane and his student, Lady Arcane, than anyone else. PRIMUS's liaison is an intelligence agent and former CIA black-bag job expert. She also helps train the heroes in stealth and other skills she knows. Why is Batgirl putting up with her? Simple. She doesn't have Batman's problem with government officials. Next post, we'll look at Batgirl's cave and go through the portal.

Batman, Robin, and Nightwing have vanished! Alfred and Oracle (Barbara Gordon) have put together a new team to protect Gotham and, hopefully, find Batman, Robin, and Nightwing. One team member is the new Batgirl, a Japanese-American woman, skilled in ninjitsu, that Batbara has been training in detective work and computers and Batman has been training in science. She has her own Batmobile, which looks like a black 2001 Pontiac Ram-Air TransAm, but is armored and has special gear inside, and her own Batcave, whose computers are connected, via dedicated lines to Bruce's and Oracle's systems. Assuming the team's using her cave, how many people would be on the support staff? Would government liaisons be accepted? Would parts of the cave exist in a pocket dimension that's connected to Batgirl's cave? Comment is invited.

Nightfly, thanks for the information on the Slayer history site.

I'm still doing a bit of tweeking on the mansion's ghosts, extra-dimensional rooms, and the world beyond the gate. Since the extra-dimensional rooms are attached to the house, PRIMUS wasn't worried about them. The world beyond the gate, a curtain of blue light, however, was a different story. More to come.

As I reread my last few posts, I noted that I forgot a few things. The team's PRIMUS liaison, Beth James, a PRIMUS intelligence agent and former CIA black-bag expert, would've notified the agency about the extradimentional areas and they would've insisted on an investigation with everything brought back and anyone who went through isolated for testing. Beth and Christine Hunter, the team's tech expert and a ninja, dressed like cat burglars, went through. Once it was found to be safe, they went through again for a more detailed look. The hotel, block one, was from the Chicago area in 1969. They found a group of UAL stewardesses staying there and an Islamic woman's group having a conference. The church and rec center, block two, were from the Detroit area in 1973. A health fair was going on in the basement. Uniformed nurses and student nurses were working there. All were wearing white caps with their uniforms. The bars and restaraunts, block three, were all from the Dallas area in 1978. All the waitress were all in uniform. One bar had a Western theme. It's waitresses, or bar maids, dressed like working cowgirls, somplete with wrist-length, black-leather gloves, toy revolvers and bandanas that they could pull up over their faces. Another bar, a Greek one, had belly dancers there. The fourth block held only a water tower. Donna, the team's housekeeper, wears black uniforms from the hotel. Toni, the team's nurse, after trying a white uniform and cap on and finding that she liked them better than her scrubs, wears either a white uniform or, occasionally, a student nurse's uniform. Either way, she always wears a white cap. Comment is invited.

The C. S. Lewis book mentioned is on order. Thus far, the extradimentional world is a pocket dimension (sp) consisting of a two by two block area. Block one is a hotel that, according to a sign, is hosting a convention of Islamic women. Block two has, from left to right, a funeral home, a church, a receration center and a doctor's office. A sign in the church foyer indicates that a blood drive is taking place in the basement. The third block is a university gymnasium building with five gymnasiums, a pool, a weight room, a mat room and a multi-purpose room. The fourth block consists of bars and restaraunts. Each building is from a different city and, according to newspapers found in various buildings, the incident that killed the people occurred in the late 1960s.

Could they be on retainer to either the DOSPA or various agencies as consultants? This happened in the CU. In the Millennium City sourcebook, on page 68, it states that Witchcraft serves as one of the senior advisors to DOSPA's Mystic Affairs Bureau.

Good points, Nightfly. Thank you.

Oh, I will. Some of the extra-dimentional rooms are haunted, too. Several geisha haunt the Japanese garden that's attached to the library. When the ballroom, that's attached to the living room, isn't in use, an orchestra and waltzing couples haunt it. All the men, including those in the orchestra, are in white ties, tail coats and white gloves while the women are in white evening gowns and opera-length white gloves. If a hero enters while the ghosts are dancing s/he will be met by a partner of the opposite sex and asked to dance. The ghost will feel solid and be a good dancer. All ghosts mentioned are pleasent.

I have five reasons for calling them power-hungry. The first is the Cruciamentum that Buffy had during season three. The second is the fact that they employ hit squads. They sent one after Buffy when her mind was in Faith's body. The third is that they believe that they think that they're the only ones that have the right to try Slayers. They took Faith from police custody to have their own trial. The fourth is the fact that they fired Giles for telling Buffy about the test and replacing him with Wesley, who was no good as a Watcher. The fifth is that they permitted Joyce Summers to be the bait in Buffy's Cruciamentum. Buffy, Giles, Willow and Xander would've told the new Slayers about these events.

If there were dolls in the house, the magic could've animated them. Would they grow to live size and have the skills their real-life counterparts would have or just stay their original size?

The Trismegistus Council is from the CU, not the Buffyverse. I'm sure the Watchers, being the power-hungry group that they are, would try to rebuild their council and take over the Slayers' lives, but the girls probably wouldn't let them.

Since, as I recall, the First destroyed the Watchers Council, the Trismegistus Council has been handling the research chores of the old council, but they're not involved in the training of the Slayers. Other people do that. A typical team consists of a Slayer, her teacher, an associate of the Trismegistus Council that acts as her researcher, a computer expert and a mage. The researcher and computer expert probably don't have much combat experience. The UT spell's purpose is for everyday use only. In fact, I came up with the idea after seeing the problems the Chinese potential had understanding everyone else. Any idea why nobody knew she couldn't drink milk or eat foods made with dairy products or Willow didn't cast a UT spell?